Made a recent family journey to Flint Michigan and our first stop was at a Rite-Aid for a candy bar. Lo and behold on the floor was a 12 pack on sale of Leinenkugel Honey Weiss. My curiosity overtook me. I have never ever had a Leinenkugel product and was quite excited at the prospect. Now "Rite Aid" and "on sale" should have clued me in, but I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Poured to a very pale yellow almost like grapefruit juice, with liitle to no head to speak of. I'm no chemist, but honey+wheat do not equal skunky (normally). The merit of this beer is its longevity. Tasted exactly the same (maybe even better) when room temperature was achieved. Macro brewing personified. Lifeless and redundant. (710 characters)

I'm usually able to appreciate Leine's ability to make somewhat different pseudo-micro stuff, but this was a disappointment from the get-go. First, It poured CLEAR yellow, with little white, foamy head. Not at all what a wheat beer is "supposed" to be. Very sour, sickly sweet smell, not at all endearing. Tastes vaguely like honey, but overall, more like a honey lager, and not a honey wheat. Mouthfeel is almost greasy, coating the tongue and throat, not enjoyable and definitely making this a one time beer. (510 characters)

The appearance of this beer is a light golden color with little head. It had a faint hop smell, and a slightly sweet taste with a hint of a hop taste. There was a smooth mouthfeel, but overall it is not an impressive brew. Though when there is limited choice, or your low on cash not a bad brew to have by far. (310 characters)

Draught: This beer is a pale yellow color. I was expecting a large white fluffy head, but didn't get it. The aroma is somewhat non-descript. Some hints of sweetness, most likely from the honey. The taste is basically a little sweet, with a thinner body. Hops? I really didn't get any, but then again I've been drinking a lot of Imperial IPA's lately. Suprisingly, the beer was fairly satisfying: good for a hot day of drinking for no special reason. (449 characters)

Pours a deep yellow with not much head to speak of,aroma is a little skunky with some fruity malt undertones but a rather unpleasant.Taste is real grainy with some fruity flavors with a biscuity malt flavors in the finish.Not as bad as I thought it would be it was given to me so I didnt have to pay for it so not a bad deal I guess. (333 characters)

It's a good thing they told me on the bottle that this was a honey weiss, otherwise I'd swear this is a pilsner. Picked this up on a trip to the midwest, hoping to soak in local color for a bit. Imagine my dissapointment. It comes out a perfectly clear golden color, smells a bit like a bottle of Miller, and tastes..

Not even really sure what to say about the taste. Starts off a bit sweet, which I'd like to think is due to some honey somewhere, even if it just tastes like sugar. Then it finishes sour. A mediocre, unhoppy sour.

Out of the larger brewers that are available in my neck of the woods and widely distrubed to bars/restaurants Leinenkugel's would likely be my choice if there are not any decent micros to choose from.

The beer is a yellow brew that formed a decent head of foam. There was a taint smell of honey that reminds me a little bit like white toast.

The taste is above average for what I have sampled of the macro breweries. I could taste the malt/wheat, but the honey never really rears its head in this brew. Even if I warmed it up a bit, it wasn't there.

The mouthfeel of this beer is rather thin, but I think they carbonate this beer a little too much which tends to fill you up fast. Not a bad beer overall. (713 characters)

I'm reminded of a Jerry Seinfeld bit about Grapenuts cereal. Jerry says: "What's the deal with Grapenuts? No grapes, no nuts!" Well allow me to ask "What's the deal with Leiny's Honey Weiss? No honey, no wheat!"

Sure, Honey Weiss pours a nice golden yellow. It has a sparkling white head that quickly disappears. But there's not much flavor or aroma to write about. What little taste there is certainly isn't offensive, but it's not what you'd expect from something called Honey Weiss.

If you don't want to be seen with a Budweiser or a Miller in hand and want to put on a "microbrew" facade, then perhaps this is the pale yellow beer for you. If you want real honey and wheat characteristics, look elsewhere. (715 characters)

A rather dull, bright off-yellow hue, no carbonation, no head, very little action coming from this beverage. Somewhat of a wheaty aroma, faint at that. Just a touch on the creamy side, some wheat flavoring most noticeable in this character-lacking brew. Some sweetness, little to no hop presence, or malt presence for that matter. A grassy palate, nil honey detection. Could quench or refresh on a mild to warm day, but extremely masked flavorings, the honey and the weiss should be removed from the label as they do not exist in this line. A bland offering from a bland line of beers. (585 characters)

The beer pours a very pale gold color with a thin white lace head. The aroma is not that bad. It has a slight weisen scent, but it seems a bit watery. There also seems to be a small light honey aroma as well. The taste is awful. It is quite watery and skunky with a small honey flavor. I don't taste much wheat here, but I guess it must have some. The mouthfeel is above average. It is a low bodied beer with good carbonation. This beer drinks average. It is a terrible weisen. It's one and done for me. (503 characters)

I was expecting something with flavors of honey and perhaps wheat when I opened this; instead I got something resembling a slightly-less-adjuncty Molson Canadian.

Aroma is of fruit and chewy honey cough drops. Poured like a true fizzy yellow beer, with a wisp of foam and a pale golden body.

Taste: macro lager with perhaps a hint of wheat instead of corn. The website proudly proclaims "John prefers it over ice, with a slice of lemon or lime". I don't know who John is, but assuming he works at the brewery and is trumpeting about two beer sins, I'm a bit leery. There's really nothing else to say about this beer's flavor...light, non-descript, bland american macro lager.

Pale honey-straw body with a small fizzy head. Faint cereal smells, maybe a hop or two. Taste is slightly sweet. Maybe some adjuncts in here... Honey? Well, perhaps, but it's not much different than Grain Belt's sweetness. Finish is short, but quenching, with a crisp wheat tang. I've had better glasses of this on tap, and it's sometimes the best choice among local bars in MN, especially in the summer. (404 characters)

Extremely pale straw yellow. My experience is still on the limited side, but I don't think I've seen a beer this pale before. The head is bright white, almost the color of cotton, is short-lived and leaves negligible lace.

The nose is honeyish and somewhat sweet. I also smell an underlying unpleasantness that I'll call 'musty' for want of a better term. Looks like the flavor could be in trouble.

Wow, it's even worse than anticipated. LHW actually tastes like a macro. It's sort of stale and sour with an unpleasant bitterness that tweaks my tongue and makes it beg for good beer. Sweetness is noted, but it sure doesn't taste like honey. The mouthfeel is abysmally thin and watery.

It can't be that hard to brew decent beer, can it? Give Honey Weiss a wide berth. (773 characters)

Nothing like what I expected. I didn't expect it to have a real wheat taste (which it didn't) , but I figured that it would be very light and very sweet and maybe actually taste like honey. What I found was an easy drinking bland pilsner.

huh!?

It's really not horrible. there's very little to be offended by. has a slight sweetness in the aftertaste that's alright, but no honey. very little other flavor, medium-light body. This would be a good choice for people who drink a lot of miller light. (504 characters)

Appearance: Yellow. About all I can say.
Smell: Expected honey or other scent of a typical wheat beer, but got nothing.
Taste: Slightly sweet, with a hint of honey, like it was added as an afterthought. They brewed this an went "Oh yeah, we got to add the honey." Then just added it to the mix.
Mouthfeel: Slightly flat, with no aftertaste (thankfully).
Drinkability: Not a wheat beer. Won't have this again.

Final Thoughts: Not what I expected. Definitely worse...but don't even get me started on the Berry Weiss. (521 characters)

If you reside on either coasts, far from the radius of Leinie's distribution, you probably have no idea how hugely popular this beer is, especially up around here. So obiquitous it is, I was once amused to discover a popular gay nightclub in downtown Mineapolis with a sign on the outside, on the main street, declaring "now serving Leinenkugel's Honey Wiess on tap!" Were there really people stopping before entering it's doors and saying," naw, let's skip this gay bar, no Honey Weiss!"
So let's revisit it, already, for the first time in years...
Color, a bright, shiny, utterly transparent bright yellow color, topped with a big, snow-white, fluffy head. Certainly not the "hefe" sort of "Weisen", for there's no haze at all.
Aroma: practically none, containing that usual Leinie's stink, sorry. Bit of a pilsner feel to it, but nothing like I'd expect from any wheat beer, certainly showing no traces of the "real Wisconsin honey" boasted of on the label. Appears a bit sweetish after all, though, but I still don't like it a bit.
Taste: flat, ...uneventful, lacking in malt and hops and anything pleasurable, yielding no texture and very little flavor. The honey does seem to peep up a tad, but any association you may conjure from a weizen of any kind does not abide here at all.
Now, tasting it bare naked, I know why so many prefer it with a lemon. And, now that I have one again, I understand how the customers at my bar felt when I offered them a real weizen instead, and they didn't like them at all. They don't like real weizens, and they probably don't really like beer at all.
This is so carbonated, yet flat in flavor, it's more like a soda pop, than an actual beer. Drinkability might be considered high, if the flavor and mouthfeel weren't so abysmal.
Rotten, really, but girls think it's tops. And girly guys.
Gets sour as it ends. Yuk.
Skip this, let my the sacrifice of my tastebuds not be in vain. (1,929 characters)

On-tap at Upper Deck. Crystal clear golden color, small head that dissipated too quickly. Smell of fair grains, touch of mile hop and some sweet twang. No wheat beer aromas to speak of. Taste is watery with a touch of honey sweetness and hardly any hops. Kind of tasteless. Not impressed by this one at all, I was imagining a German style Weiss beer with real honey flavor too boot. Alas this is not one such nectar. (416 characters)

You wouldn't know this was a wheat beer if the bottle didn't say. I mean, its appearance isn't your typical cloud or haze. Rather this beer is pretty clear, straw in color with a small, non-laceing white head. The aroma is not overly sweet, but about average. The taste is crisp, just a touch of honey blends this brew to a nice balance between the slight hop and the wheat malt. The mouth is left alittle dry, wanting more. Im not big on over-sweet brews, thisone just hit the spot. I'll buy thisone again. (507 characters)

Cant find a lot to get enthused about here. Had a bottle in a Wisconsin bar where it was the nearest thing to a micro-brew and the bottle had been in a flourescent lighted cooler. No complaints about the color, smell and taste are not off-putting.
Another bottle from the Leinie's Lodge Tackle Box improved my opinion somewhat. There actually is a slight spicy weizen aspect in the nose that improves the tasting experience. Still can't say where the "honey" part comes in. (480 characters)

Nice, sweet malt aroma, but not much to announce that this is a wheat. Very clean flavor - nothing noteworthy, other than the fact that there are no off-flavors, and "technically" pretty well made. Honey does seem to lend some sweetness, but no particular honey flavors are evident. A refreshing American pale wheat, but quite average. (335 characters)

Clear golden. Thick, dense white head. Good retention. Aroma is a little spicy of all things. But I also get a little of that honey sweetness and pilsner like malt qualities on the nose. This is a refreshing beer, if a bit bland. Not really a lot going on that I like. Sweet qualities are really subtle. Matliness almost absent. Bitterness barely perceived. I'd take the Leiney's Original in a heartbeat over this one. (418 characters)

i don't have much experiance with wheat beers, but this definately is not like the others i've had. pours very pale just like a mass produced lager with no head at all. there was no cloudiness as i've seen in other wheat beers. very slight honey flavor, but not too noticeable. save your money and just buy bud or miller, this really isn't any better and i don't thionk you're realy getting a wheat beer. (404 characters)

This brew poured a large head of fine white bubbles. It has a transparent light lemon yellow body that left very little lacing. You can smell the honey flavor in its aroma. Its flavor is nice with a little mild honey flavor to it. It is initially smooth and stays that way through the finish. Overall, it was a nice beer to drink, but in this category I would rather have the Michelob Honey Lager. (397 characters)